How much financial assistance is available per month to low-income families with two preschool-age children?

This map tells us how much family benefits countries provide per month to create an income safety net for low-income families with two preschool-age children.

Map reflects laws and policies in place as of March 2012.

Cash benefits refer to direct financial assistance provided to households by the government, as opposed to other types of assistance such as food stamps or tax.

Our data on family benefits include only cash benefits because we were unable to examine other types of transfers to families as there was no reliable global data source for this information.

In order to provide a concrete and comparable image of the financial support offered to families across countries, we calculated benefit levels for sample families with a specified number of children of a specified age. For families with preschool-age children, the calculation was made based on a family with two 4-year-old children.

When benefits differed according to income level, the lowest income bracket was used as we were particularly interested in financial support available to families with the greatest need.

Benefits are adjusted for differences in buying power across countries. To determine purchasing power parity (PPP), economists estimate the amount of money required to purchase the same bundle of goods and services across countries rather than using a simple exchange rate to compare currencies.